The Welcome Will Not End
by Equestrienne Dreams
Summary: "Certainty is fleeting. That is why we must have faith." In the wake of Sister Evangelina's departure, Shelagh rushes to the one person who needs her most. Shulienne.


"She _what?"_

"I'm afraid it's true," Patrick tells her heavily. "God only knows how we'll manage. I don't know the whole story, but if she's going to an order that austere, if she is truly that shaken…"

"It's bad," confirms Shelagh grimly, already reaching for her coat. "Patrick, I have to go to Sister Julienne."

"Of course you do," he says calmly, reaching for her hand. "Sister Mary Cynthia has already agreed to save Timothy, Angela and me from ourselves in the dinner department. She offered as soon as she told me."

"God bless that girl," says Shelagh fervently, squeezing his hand. "And God bless _you,_ too."

She exits in a flurry of kisses and a swirling coat.

"Where is she?" Shelagh demands briskly the moment she enters the front hall.

A small, amused smile on her face, Mary Cynthia points upstairs. By the time Shelagh reaches the top, she's panting, but she can't slow down. Save for the quiet hours of the night when most everyone is sleeping, Julienne's door has _never_ been closed, always open to someone in need of care, counsel, or a medical miracle. But it is shut now, no light shining underneath, and she hasn't even halted before she's knocking sharply.

"I'm not available," Julienne says hoarsely.

"You are to me."

"Shelagh." Her name mingles despair and hope, but not enough of the latter. "Not even to you. I'm sorry."

 _That,_ thinks Shelagh firmly, _will be quite enough of that._

"For the love of God, Louise, _open this door!"_

Something hard clatters to the floor, and the next thing Shelagh hears is the soft sound of padding footsteps.

 _Thank You,_ she thinks, and takes a deep breath.

Julienne's face is haggard, tear tracks visible on her cheeks even in the dim lighting. "Well," she says wryly, a ghost of a smile flitting about her mouth, "if you've got this far, I suppose you may as well come in."

"As if I would have taken 'no' for an answer," Shelagh informs her, her own voice beginning to choke up. The bedcovers are a mess, and Shelagh bends to pick up the small volume lying on the floor.

She knows the title without needing light: _Revelations of Divine Love._

Julienne sits wearily, seemingly aged a decade in a matter of hours. She moves slowly, carefully, as though every movement hurts, and Shelagh has to fight the impulse to put her arms around the mother of her heart. Instead she reaches out, taking Julienne's hands in her own, and sits beside her, simply waiting.

"'Things fall apart,'" Julienne murmurs at last, "'the centre cannot hold…'"

"What isn't holding, Sister?" Shelagh asks her softly. "The world around you? You yourself?" A deep breath, and then: "Or the only centre that will never fail you?"

"Is that true?" Julienne rasps in answer, squeezing Shelagh's hands. "Sister Evangelina…"

"Is suffering a crisis of faith in _herself,_ from what I understand. Not in God, but in what God wants of her - and whether she has truly been doing it. I _know_ that feeling, Sister! A different source and a different reason, perhaps, but I know it. My contemplative silence was of a different kind, but needed all the same.

"Do you truly think for one moment, Sister, that if her faith were truly shaken she would have done as she did? She needs to _listen._ To shut away the noise and the distraction and hear His call with clarity. And whatever He requires of her, we _must_ surrender to His will.

"You said, once upon a time; 'Certainty is fleeting. That is why we must have faith.' And in so many ways Sister Evangelina has _been_ your certainty, has she not? Your support, as you are hers. But your strength is not in those around you, Sister. It is _inside_ you, by His grace and your faith. Remember: 'What, do you wish to know your Lord's meaning in this thing? Know it well: _love_ was His meaning.' His meaning is always and _ever_ love, and just because we cannot see it does not mean it is not there."

Julienne bows her head, pressing her forehead to their clasped fingers, and Shelagh nearly breaks. _She needs to find her own strength now, inside herself,_ she thinks firmly. _Offering her another crutch is not what she needs now. But oh, how I wish I could!_

"I don't," Julienne rasps at last, "I don't know if I _do_ have the strength, Shelagh. I told you once, I feel as though the older I get, the more I have to learn. I cannot keep up, I cannot hold together - 'the centre cannot hold' - and if I fall, what then? I cannot _do_ this on my own!"

The last words are broken, choked with sobs, and then Shelagh does break. Detangling her hands, she draws Julienne against her chest, as the other woman had once held her on a tiny camp bed.

"You are _not_ alone," Shelagh whispers fiercely. "You have God, always. And you always have _me."_

That, at least, is enough to bring Julienne's head back up. "Do I?" she whispers. "Do I, truly?"

" _Yes!"_ cries Shelagh, her composure broken at last. "Yes, Louise, you do. I may have followed a different road, but our destination is the same, our lives forever intertwined. I am now Mum and Nurse Turner and Patrick's wife and _Shelagh,_ but I will always, _always_ be your Sister Bernadette. There is nothing I would not do for you, no counsel I would not offer, for as long as I live. ' _Love was His meaning.'_ And it is His grace, His gift. _That_ is our strength. Love of Him, and of each other. 'For God _so loved the world,'_ remember? Sister Evangelina's love for you has not departed with her. And neither has mine."

"When did you become so wise?" Somewhere in the choked, sobbing words is a gurgle of true laughter, and it gives Shelagh a new dawn of hope, bright and fragile like the first rays of sunrise.

"I had a very, _very_ good teacher."

"My darling girl," murmurs Julienne, reaching out to caress her cheek. "His grace and His gift, indeed."

"Yes," says Shelagh again, fighting back her own tears. "Oh, Sister, 'I will lift mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help -' "

"'My help cometh from the Lord, which made Heaven and Earth." Julienne joins the psalm with a gasp of relief, and Shelagh simply holds her more tightly as their voices join together, reciting words as old as time from heartfelt memory.

"'He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.'"

"'He _shall_ preserve thy soul,'" Shelagh whispers fiercely at last, and finally Julienne buries her face in Shelagh's plain cotton dress and lets go in a flood of anguished sobs.


End file.
